


7. Isolation

by titC



Series: Whumptober 2019 [7]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Flu, Gen, Hospital, M/M, pre-Matt/Foggy, whumptober2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-22 22:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20881850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC
Summary: Foggy has the flu from hell.





	7. Isolation

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Whumptober](https://whumptober2019.tumblr.com/) for organizing it and [PixelByPixel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixelByPixel) for the beta!

Two days. Foggy had been quarantined with the Chevyenkos for two days, and he was antsy. The NY State Department of Health knocked on their door as he was explaining them their options. They were Ukrainian folks who’d lived next door to his parents for years, so of course he’d come to help. They’d just welcomed their nephew who’d fled Crimea, but – apart from the Russian military force and the fighting – a new, scary strain of flu had just appeared there.

Hence the quarantine, hence the tenth game of Scrabble on his phone in two days, hence Foggy’s absolute boredom.

“I’d like to get back to my job, you know?”

The nurse shook his head. “You can work from your computer, but you can’t leave before we’re sure you’re not going to develop the disease.” His voice was slightly muffled by the mask he was wearing.

“Yeah, I know. My partner’s not stuck here, at least.” Matt had brought him fresh clothes and Karen sent him the files so he could still help, so it could have been worse. Right?

“See? It’s not all bad. And if we can contain this new strain…”

Yeah, yeah. Prevent it from spreading, save people. It was a particularly contagious and deadly strain, they’d emphasized. Killed a lot more older folks and children than a regular flu, they’d said, more than most other strains; and a higher risk of healthy adults developing pneumonia and even, in a few cases, sepsis.

So really, Foggy hoped he would _not_ start coughing, having chills and headaches, or any of the other symptoms they’d told him to look for.

Matt was already antsy enough; if Foggy actually got sick he’d implode or something. Or maybe he’d just throw himself into Daredeviling with a vengeance, as if he wasn’t already pushing himself too far. Another nurse had commented the other day on Matt’s black eye, and he’d been treated to the “Aw, shucks! I’m blind; I just didn’t _see_ the door!” routine. Amazingly, it never failed to work. Foggy was pretty sure Matt knew he rolled his eyes every time, and that it actually encouraged him to use and abuse it.

That very same partner was supposed to visit today, but he’d been stuck in court longer than planned and Foggy tried not to be jealous. He wanted to be out, not confined there with more aches than an old man and exhausted, almost dizzy, from not moving. He wanted to – a bout of coughing interrupted his thoughts.

“Huh,” the nurse said.

“What?”

“How are you feeling, Mr. Nelson?”

“Like – oh, no. Oh, shit.”

And that’s how Foggy moved from quarantine to isolation.

Crashes and raised voices and angry tapping outside, and Foggy knew what was happening. An hour and a half after moving to isolation, he was already feeling worse than he’d ever felt, shivering and sweating at the same time. He was suspended in sticky, heavy molasses; just moving on his side felt too much. Eh, he didn’t want to anyway.

He got it now. This really was the flu from hell.

“Let me in!”

“Matt, the doctor said…”

More swearing. Right now Foggy really couldn’t deal with the tantrum he knew was building up on the other side of the door, and he let himself sink into semi-unconsciousness.

He swam up to a sort of vague awareness of his surroundings, too many things stuck in his arm, and one suited-up figure standing near his bed.

“Urg?”

“Hey, Fogs.”

“Hey.” Foggy let his head fall a little to the left as he tried to focus on Matt. “I’m sick.”

“Yes. How are you…” Matt sighed. “The doctors have forbidden your family to come in; they said people over 60 or with children are more at risk.”

“You?”

Foggy couldn’t see Matt’s mouth behind the mask, but his eyes were crinkling at the corners. They’d given him transparent goggles, as if he needed to see anything. “I’m not over 60.”

“Shouldn’t be here.”

“I _should_.”

“Dangerous.”

“I need to – you’ve been here for days. Nelson and Murdock isn’t the same without you.”

Aw. “Karen?” 

“She’s fine but she’s already got a cold, so she’s staying out.”

Huh. Yeah, wise. Foggy’s heald felt stuffy and slow and he was just… so tired. But Matt was vibrating in front of him so he needed to say something, show that he was still alive and if not quite kicking, that he hadn’t kicked the bucket quite yet. “Funny gown.” There, two words.

“Yeah, they insisted. I’m not supposed to come too close or touch you, and they said I couldn't take the cane or glasses unless I left them here, so…”

“Don’t need the cane.”

“They don’t know that.” Matt took a few more steps and put his gloved hand on Foggy’s. “I can’t touch you, and you sound all… well, you sound sick. I don’t like it.”

“Yeah.” Ugh, words were hard to get out. “Me neither.”

“No, I bet you don’t.” Matt circled his wrist and squeezed. “You hold on, yeah?”

“Hey, m’not dying.” Foggy’s bout of coughing then was rather unconvincing, however, and Matt made a weird, strangled sound. “Promise.”

“Mr. Murdock, please step away from the patient,” a nurse said from behind Matt. “We told you not to come so close!”

“But I…”

“Mr. Nelson needs to rest now.”

Foggy heard Matt’s protests, but by then he was too busy trying to keep his lungs inside of his aching chest to do anything about it. Medical personnel busied themselves around him and it felt a little like he left the land of the living for a while, back into the sludge of sickness and fever.

Time was… it _wasn’t_, really. Foggy had a few moments when he was mostly aware of his surroundings, and they were not reassuring. Faceless medical staff hidden behind protective gowns and goggles and gloves and masks, poking at him and changing IV bags; they were talking too. He didn’t understand them, didn’t understand the words. His head was killing him, as were his chest and his back and his legs and his shoulders and every single muscle, really. He remembered coughing, a lot of coughing; he remembered chills and fever and feeling gross when he swam towards a slightly more conscious state. It never lasted, which was not so bad after all.

_Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…_

_Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee… _

The words kept repeating, on and on and on. They were the only thing in Foggy’s world. 

After a while he became aware of a little pressure on his hand, then of the words themselves. What they were, what they meant... and of who it was.

“Matty?” He sounded like he’d been smoking for ten years straight.

“Pray for us sinners...” Matt’s fingers twitched around his. “Foggy?”

“Not dead.” 

“Thank God,” and there had rarely been such fervor in Matt’s voice in all the years Foggy had known him.

“Hey, I’m tough, right?”

“The toughest.” Had Matt been crying? Foggy used his free hand to rub at his eyes so he could see Matt’s face better, or at least what was visible of it between the mask and the goggles. His eyes were red though, red and puffy. “The doctor said you should be over the worst.”

“That bad, huh.”

“You’ve been here a week, Fogs. _A week!_” Matt almost wiped his eyes with his gloved hands, then remembered why he couldn't when he hit the goggles. “They didn’t let anyone come in for days, and then they said you were less contagious but you weren’t responsive; you didn’t… And you were all alone in here.”

“_You’re_ here.”

“I’ve let you down often enough.” 

And then Matt started to remove his glove and Foggy panicked. “Don’t!”

“I just want to touch you!”

“Pretty sure s’bad idea.”

“I…” Matt’s face crumpled. “Please.”

“No.” Foggy tangled his fingers with Matt’s to make sure he wouldn't try again. “Why…?” He shook their hands lightly. “Not usual.”

“I just… The doctors were very worried,” he finally said.

“And?”

Matt kept quiet for long enough Foggy thought he’d never answer. “Usually,” he started before pausing again. “Since we were roommates, I’ve always, uh. Felt you. Heard you, the way your feet slide a little on each step when you're in a hurry, or when your hair is long enough to brush your shoulders, or… things like that. Your favorite shampoo and when you changed laundry detergent and when you’d been to see your parents. I can hear your heartbeat anywhere in the Kitchen, you know? I listen for you.” Matt squirmed. ”You, uh. I know you find it creepy.” 

Well, yeah, a little bit. But now he’d gotten used to the idea, Foggy couldn’t imagine knowing, feeling so much about everyone and everything and having to hide it all the time. How had Matt not gone mad? Or rather, it certainly explained why he was a little unhinged sometimes. Way less than Foggy would be in his shoes, that was for sure.

“All I can smell now is hospital smells, and your heartbeat is all wrong.”

“I’m fine.” Well, no. That was a lie. “I’ll be fine.”

“You better be, Fogs. Can’t do this without you.”

“You don’t get a choice, buddy.”

“I don’t want one,” Foggy was suddenly reminded of how irresistible the Full Murdock Charm, Unleashed (™) could be when that dumbass grinned wide enough his mask couldn't hide it. “Nelson and Murdock against the world, right?”

“Absolutely.”

Matt stayed until Foggy fell asleep, a real sleep that had nothing to do with the fevered hallucinations of the days before; and if Foggy secretly thought Matt’s presence and their still tangled hands helped he kept it to himself for now. 

But there might be some things he wouldn't keep to himself forever.


End file.
